


The Spirit of Jazz

by voodoochild



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Background Slash, Backstory, Divorce, F/M, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-06
Updated: 2011-08-06
Packaged: 2017-10-22 06:42:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/235029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/voodoochild/pseuds/voodoochild
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes is not Lauren Emerson-Lestrade. Sometimes, Greg has to remind himself of this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Spirit of Jazz

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [this prompt](http://sherlockbbc-fic.livejournal.com/10852.html?thread=55309924#t55309924) at the **sherlockbbc_fic** community, and for the song "The Spirit of Jazz" by the Gaslight Anthem. Lyrics quoted below from the same song.

_So what now lover, with that long black hair?  
If I cut you up, maybe I can repair  
And bandage your wounds with the salt on my tongue  
But I'm still the only one around here  
And was I good to you, the wife of my youth?  
Can't another soul love you like my rotten bones do..._

All it had taken was a pair of tight black jeans and long black hair being shaken out from a motorcycle helmet, and he was done for.

Lauren Emerson, first-year psych major at King's College. Spoke like one of the most posh girls you could ever find, rode bikes, swore, and drank like a longshoreman. He'll never know what he'd done to even make her take a second glance at him, but it had barely been a week and already he was sneaking into her dorm to shag and taking her 'round to all his favorite pubs.

They were the darlings among their various friends, the couple everyone pointed to and said "they'll make it work", and the irony chokes him now.

They made it through the rough years, when he walked a beat and she worked two jobs to try and make the rent. Made it through the miscarriage and Caroline's birth, through colic and potty-training and first days of school. Made it through her stalker and the time he got stabbed by a junkie. Years of hard times and not enough them-time.

Maybe that was why it got so bad. Maybe that was why she worked longer hours to avoid him. Maybe that was why he started drinking, why he continued when she begged him to stop.

Maybe that was why she left.

He'll never forget the last fight. There had been dozens of fights, her angry, him defensive, waiting until Carrie was out with her friends or at football practice to yell at each other. He'd known right away this one was different, walking in the door late one night to find her at the kitchen table, shoulders slumped in defeat.

"I'm tired of it," she'd said. "Tired of fighting, tired of waiting for the call that you've been killed in the line of duty, tired of watching you hide in a bottle and pretending it's fine. All I am is tired, and I don't want that for my daughter."

On his knees on the cracked lineoleum, he'd begged her for the first time in his life.

"Lauren, please, don't do this. We can fix this - I can fix this. Tell me what you want and I'll do it."

She'd buried her face in her hands, crying. "You won't. You need the job, the job needs you, and as long as you're in CID, you'll keep drinking. And I can't take it anymore, Greg."

The next morning, he woke up to find divorce papers on his desk, and Lauren and Caroline moved into a flat in Vauxhall. It had been a nice little boot to the arse, but he'd just started drinking more. Worked out a custody arrangement with the lawyers, didn't get full custody because no judge in their right mind would let a homicide detective retain full custody of an eight-year-old.

He got Carrie on weekends and spent two years getting Lauren to trust him again. Surprisingly enough, the impetus to quit drinking came from a pain-in-the-arse kid who called himself a "consulting detective" and who struck a deal with him.

If Sherlock Holmes stopped taking cocaine and any other drug, he could work with CID as a consultant on homicide cases. If Greg Lestrade quit drinking, he would become Sherlock's sole contact at the Met.

Or, as Sherlock put it - "I'm asking nothing of you that you're not requiring of me. Quid pro quo, Inspector. Shall we clean ourselves up together?"

A year later, it's the best relationship he's got, other than his daughter. He's aware of the irony - a tall, gorgeous, grey-eyed woman with curly black hair traded for a tall, gorgeous, grey-eyed man with curly black hair - but no one could replace Lauren and Sherlock would never try. He's learning how to act around Carrie, who thinks he's hilarious, but Greg doesn't know what he'll do when she grows up and figures out Sherlock's not joking about the body parts.

He'll never take Sherlock for a ride on the bike or for a pint at the Rotten, but then again, he'd never take Lauren to the Royal Philharmonic or jet-skiing in Brighton.


End file.
